mdatspace

While hubble had a development plagued with issues and poor management, to call it a great fail is wrong.

Kaku tends to get things wrong or hype things up(could be both) when it comes to things other than what he specializes in. "Gasses from Yellowstone could kill people out to a thousand miles". I would be more worried about ashfall than a dilute plume of volcanic gasses.

This can't be called unconventional as a lander. This concept is absurd and and it works!

I hope it is. We have sat here for a few years in our complacency.

Agreed. I was one of the few who were hoping that Chang'e 3 would restore focus on space, but it only showed the complacency our fellow Americans have.They won't be able to rest on their laurels after the Chinese pull it out from under them.

Most comments on CNN could be summed up like this:"China is 50 years behind and we did that before them".

The shuttle was reliable, considering it completed most of its flights without significant problems.

I agree. It doesn't have the upper attachment node other cores have, and you have symmetry issues, so I don't use it frequently.

I like the QBE more, but I can see the virtues of the Stayputnik. It has a lot of surface area to attach batteries, solar panels or scientific equipment to.

Also, Bush made the decision to cancel it in 2004. NASA was spending 4B per year on the shuttles. Bush needed to stop the spending if CxP were to go further.http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2011/08/reversing-nonsensical-retirement-shuttle-requires-miracle-decastro/ A quote:“The reason to shut down the Shuttle Program is that the Nation doesn’t want to spend any more money on Shuttle. President Bush cancelled the Shuttle Program to fund the Constellation Program. President Obama cancelled the Constellation Program to fund commercial companies."

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf From page 6: "Retire the Space Shuttle as soon as assembly of the International Space Station is completed, planned for the end of this decade;" That was issued in 2004. The end of the decade then was 2010. The shuttle was retired because of the demands of the vision for space exploration, not because it was unreliable or costly. It was planned out.

The shuttle could carry more people than a Soyuz. The Shuttle had to be retired to follow the vision for space exploration.

Constellation(Or CxP), while it had a general plan(ISS, Moon then Mars), was trying to do Apollo the second without Apollo funding and public support. NASA did not get additional funding. Ares 1&Orion had technical problems, meaning the cost estimates could not be made. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09844.pdf CxP was given an insufficient budget to operate and mitigate technical risks. Funding shortfalls were projected to last from 2009 to 2012. CxP didn't last that long. Ares V would have flown by 2019, if things went to plan. In reality, Ares V would have flown in the mid 2020's, as found by the Augustine commission. I think of constellation as over-budget and behind schedule, and rightfully canceled. But it was not NASA's fault. NASA was strapped with an ambitious program akin to Apollo, but had to do so on a much smaller budget and had complications in its way.

NTR is probably better when it comes to nuclear propulsion. I wouldn't call chemical rockets "toys". While they are inefficient, they are tried and tested. And when I mean tried and tested, I mean they are used on practically every rocket in history.

The Rockomax 48-7S, decouplers, struts and parachutes.

I made these using purdue's impact simulator. I didn't really care about the trajectory or how realistic it is in that regard. A rock is going to impact the earth, and you have to stop it. That is all. A nuke detonation inside of the asteroid will produce a lot of debris. This asteroid is too small to hold onto the rubble. However, the debris that is produced will burn up, and the asteroid may face a reduction in mass and size.

Scenario 3: A 150 meter asteroid will hit at a velocity of 55 m/s. It has a density of 3000 kg/m3. Our simulation suggest it will hit at 60 degrees. However, images of the object suggest that it suffered an impact that may have fractured it. Multiple projectiles over 20 meters in diameter are trailing it. This object may have been a result of a larger NEO being disrupted and thus larger objects are potentially following. Scenario 3B: Soon afterwards, the parent body of this rock was identified. It is 1000 meters in diameter, and is the remnant of a former planetesimal. It has a similar density and trajectory. You need to stop this with current technology.

I used purdue, too.

Scenario 2: An asteroid with a diameter of 80 meters and a density of 3500 kg/m3 will collide with the earth at 40 m/s. This object, 2013DD1, was originally a temporary satellite. However, a close encounter with the moon has shoved it in an unstable orbit which will eventually cause it to impact the earth. Our simulations suggest it will hit at 35 degrees. There is 1 year until impact. EDIT: I think this will go unsolved.

It was a simple one. More to come. Just wait it out.

This thread is about impact scenarios. There are many threads about impacts, and most are about how can we destroy the asteroids before they hit us. This is another one of them, but I won't make you find a way to blow up a 10 km rock. We'll start simple. First Scenario: The Kerbal space station, or KSS. This is double the ISS, which is 450,000 kg, 72 meters in length, 108 meters in width and 20 meters in height. Just double that. The KSS got hit by a piece of debris which caused it to depressurize. It destroyed multiple docking ports, and it cannot be de-orbited easily. There is a few docking ports left. It cannot be saved, but there is bigger risks. There is a lot of debris where the KSS orbits(An equatorial orbit at 200 km). Some of it is big, some is small, but if it is hit with something big, a huge amount of debris will be formed. This will greatly increase the population of large and small debris in LEO. Issue two is if it de-orbits itself. Its orbit will decay in 10 years. It will break up, and debris may land in populated areas. You need to remove the threat. This is just a warm-up. Current tally: 1 for DisarmingBaton5 1 for Ralathon 1 for airbornem4

I agree with K2. think RATO(Rocket-assisted takeoff) would be more economical to launch the SSTO. It can do just as well and it is easier to design. Fire the RATO rockets and after they run out, drop them.

I agree. It is a non-issue. This game is not about gender. It is about rocketry.

I wonder why we even care. This game is about rockets, not kerbals or gender.

Quoting old post. One would think that eve is more geologically active based on its size. It should lose less heat than Kerbin. Those gravity variations may be a reference to mass concentrations. Many large impact basins on the moon share those.